Although he emphasized that the process is extremely complicated and that no final decisions have been made, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar revealed that trade talks between India and the United States are currently in progress.
He warned against making snap decisions while talks are still in progress and emphasized that any trade agreement must be “mutually beneficial” and serve the interests of both nations. “These are very complex negotiations; they are very intricate,” Jaishankar said.
Until everything is decided, nothing is decided. Any trade agreement must benefit both parties; it must be advantageous to both nations. We would anticipate that from the trade agreement. Any assessment of it would be premature until that is completed.
Significant regional developments, such as a recent ceasefire between India and Pakistan, are occurring at the same time as the negotiations. The day after Jaishankar’s comments, US President Donald Trump attributed this ceasefire to a change in emphasis from war to business, implying that both India and Pakistan accepted his recommendation to put trade ahead of aggression. Trump asserted that both nations were now more likely to seek trade opportunities rather than conflict, and he took responsibility for helping to defuse the situation.
Recent tariff conflicts and efforts to close the trade gap provide a context for the trade talks. India’s biggest economic partner is still the United States, with $131.84 billion in bilateral trade in 2024–2025.
Washington has called for more market access and cheaper tariffs because of India’s existing large trade imbalance with the US. According to reports, India has responded by offering to waive charges on a significant number of tariff lines and lower average tariff differentials in the first phase of the agreement, in exchange for exemptions from present and upcoming US tariff increases.
Before the larger trade agreement is finalized, maybe by the fall of 2025, both parties hope to utilize the current 90-day halt on new US tariffs—which is scheduled to end on July 9—as a chance to reach an intermediate agreement and gain “early mutual wins.”
The scope and complexity of the negotiations are reflected in the agreement under discussion, which addresses a wide variety of topics like as tariffs, services, rules of origin, non-tariff barriers, and customs facilitation.
Even while the US and India are dedicated to strengthening their trade relationship, Jaishankar’s comments highlight the need for any final deal to be fair and advantageous to both sides and the fact that because the negotiations are complex, no conclusion should be taken until all problems have been addressed.
